TPG Daily Links: Wanna Be Clicking Something

Posted on May 19, 2012

Saturday is just a reminder that Monday is only two days away. Until then, why not take a look around the PC universe? We have a pair of video card reviews, an interesting take on Diablo III, a Google Drive preview, why Windows 8 should scare you, another great Crysis mod and more.

Search engine giant Google took the wraps off its long rumored cloud storage service called Google Drive this week. The service has been rumored for years, but is (finally) official. In the interim, several competing services have emerged and even managed to grab significant shares of the market. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how Google’s service will stack up. In this article, we’ll be taking Google Drive on a test drive from installation to usage to see if it is a worthy competitor to other popular storage services—and whether it is worth switching to!

Earlier this year when AMD introduced the HD 7770 we took a look at cards from both Sapphire and XFX. Although we were impressed with the cards performance it was a little ill-timed due to AMD still clearing out discounted back stock. Three months later we are able to revisit the situation with today’s release of Sapphires new HD 7770 Vapor-X. With Sapphires Vapor chamber cooling technology along with a nice overclock over the reference design, the Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X could be a great option for a gamer on a limited budget.

This article is showing the results from a GeForce GTX 680 when using the official drivers for each platform. On the Linux side, this meant the NVIDIA 295.40 while on the Windows side it was their 301.34 release.

Sticking with an obsolete operating system always starts off great, but then you begin to miss out on new things. After a few years, Microsoft pulls the plug, and you’re on your own with no software patches and no security updates. The sad thing is, I don’t want to keep using Windows 7 forever. As nice an operating system as it is, it’s not perfect, and many of Windows 8’s Desktop improvements actually seem awfully compelling. However, I won’t be able to enjoy them without dealing with all those Metro-related hassles.

And as I face repeating the same damned map for a third time, watching my characters stagger about trapped in lag despite my strong, steady internet connection, I just start thinking about Grim Dawn and Torchlight II, and how much I can’t wait to see what they add to the genre. Because as far as I can tell Diablo III, as fun as it is when the spell lasts, has added little more than wantonly stupid DRM.

Origin is offering to waive its distribution fees for any developers that have a successfully crowd-funded, ready-to-publish downloadable PC game. Origin will provide distribution services for 90 days after the game’s launch, giving new crowd-funded games a chance to reach the growing worldwide audience on Origin.

CryZone: Sector 23 – ModDB

This project represents a global modification for the game «Crysis» through the use of resources and the setting of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. by GSC. Modes reflects the concept of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on the engine CryEngine 2, possessing far greater capacity than the X-Ray. It is through the use of as the «motors» CE2 you can observe the excellent graphics, high-quality character models and animations, improved rendering and more.

Interview With Dan Pinchbeck – The Critical Bit

After spending a number of years studying games in an academic setting, Dr. Dan Pinchbeck designed Dear Esther, an unconventional story-driven game, and released it to critical and financial success. Since then, his small development team has expanded drastically and is now working on two larger titles: Everyone’s Gone to the Rapture, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

The story behind The Witcher 2 is almost as epic as the plot of the hugely successful RPG itself – a tale of how an independent Polish studio created one of the most technologically advanced PC games in existence and then somehow converted it across to the Xbox 360, retaining and indeed adding to the original gameplay and bringing across the vast majority of the game’s phenomenal visuals.